Mabel Gardiner Hubbard
Hubbardc. 1917
Born	Mabel Gardiner Hubbard (1857-11-25)November 25, 1857 Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	January 3, 1923(1923-01-03) (aged 65) Chevy Chase, Maryland, U.S.
Resting place	Beinn Bhreagh,Nova Scotia,Canada
Occupation	Businesswoman
Spouse	Alexander Graham Bell ​ ​ (m. 1877; died 1922)​
Children	Elsie Marian Edward Robert
Father	Gardiner Greene Hubbard

Mabel Gardiner Hubbard Bell^[1][2][3] (November 25, 1857 – January 3, 1923) was an American businesswoman, and the daughter of Boston lawyerGardiner Green Hubbard. She was the wife ofAlexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first practicaltelephone.

From the time of Mabel's courtship with Graham Bell in 1873, until his death in 1922, Mabel became and remained the most significant influence in his life.^[1][4] Folklore held that Bell undertook telecommunication experiments in an attempt to restore her hearing which had been destroyed by disease close to her fifth birthday, leaving her completelydeaf for the remainder of her life.^{[3]: 1 [5][6][7][Note 1]}

Mabel Gardiner Hubbard was born on November 25, 1857, inCambridge, Massachusetts, United States, toGardiner Greene Hubbard and Gertrude Mercer McCurdy.^{[3][Note 2]} She had a near-fatal bout ofscarlet fever close to her fifth birthday in 1862 while visiting her maternal grandparents in New York City, and was thereafter left permanently and completelydeaf.^[4][7] The disease destroyed herinner ear'svestibular sensors, leaving her with a greatlyimpaired sense of balance, to the extent that it was very difficult for her to walk at night in the dark.^[3]

Mabel was the inspiration for her father's involvement in the founding of the first oral school for the deaf in the United States, theClarke School for the Deaf. Having been educated in both the United States and in Europe, she learned to both talk andlip-read with great skill in multiple languages.^[4][8][9] She was also, due in great part to her parents' efforts, one of the first deaf children in the nation to be taught to both lip-read and speak, which allowed her to integrate herself easily and almost completely within the hearing world,^[10] an event virtually unknown to those in the deaf community of that era.^[11]

In support of her parents' efforts to increase funding for deaf education, Mabel testified before a congressional hearing at a young age. Her avoidance of the deaf community until her middle age when her parents died and left her to assume their roles as benefactor to the societies for the deaf, would later lead to criticisms that she was embarrassed by her impairment.

Described as "strong and self-assured", Hubbard became one of Bell's pupils at his new school for the deaf, and later evolved into his confidant.^[4] They married on July 11, 1877, in the Cambridge home of her parents, when she was 19, more than 10 years Bell's junior.^[3][9] Together they had four children, including two daughters:^[3] Elsie May Bell (1878–1964) who marriedGilbert Hovey Grosvenor ofNational Geographic fame,^[12][13] and Marian Hubbard Bell (1880–1962), who was referred to as "Daisy", and who was nearly namedPhotophone by Bell after her birth.^[14]

Hubbard also bore two sons, Edward (1881) and Robert (1883), both of whom died shortly after birth leaving their parents bereft.^[15] From 1877, she and "Alec", as she preferred to call Bell, lived in Washington, D.C. at their home, the Brodhead-Bell Mansion, which they occupied for several years, and from 1888 onwards residing increasingly at theirBeinn Bhreagh (Gaelic for "beautiful mountain") estate, inCape Breton,Nova Scotia, Canada.

After her husband, Bell's death on August 2, 1922, Hubbard slowly lost her sight and grew increasingly consigned to the care of her daughters, withdrawing into a world of silent darkness.^[9] She died ofpancreatic cancer at the home of her daughter Marian, inChevy Chase, Maryland, five months later, on January 3, 1923,^[3][5][6] both of whom are buried near their home on "The Point" at their estate of Beinn Bhreagh, originally their summer residence. Her ashes were interred with Alexander's grave exactly one year, to the hour, after his burial.^[3]: 208 Today, they rest together near the top of their "beautiful mountain" of their estate overlookingBras d'Or Lake, under a simple boulder of granite.^[3]

Hubbard was the indirect source of her husband's early commercial success after his creation of the telephone. TheU.S. Centennial Exposition inPhiladelphia in 1876 made Bell's newly invented telephone a featured headline worldwide. Judges Emperor DomPedro II of theEmpire of Brazil and the eminent British physicistWilliam Thomson (Lord Kelvin) recommended his device to theCommittee of Electrical Awards, which voted Bell theGold Medal for Electrical Equipment. Bell also won a secondGold Medal forVisible Speech, for his additional display at the exposition, helping to propel him to international fame. Bell, who was then a full-time teacher, had not even planned on exhibiting at the fair due to his heavy teaching schedule and preparation for his students' examinations. He went there only at the stern insistence of his fiancée and future wife.^[9][16]

Hubbard understood Bell's reluctance to go to the exhibition and display his works. She secretly bought his train ticket to Philadelphia, packed his bag, and then took the unknowing Bell toBoston's train station where she told her shocked fiancé that he was going on a trip. When Bell started to argue, Hubbard turned her sight away from him, thus becoming literally deaf to his protests.^[4][9][17]

TheBell Telephone Company was organized on July 9, 1877, by Hubbard's fatherGardiner Greene Hubbard who owned 1,387 of the 5,000 issued shares and had the title of "trustee". Hubbard's husband Alexander Bell owned 1,497 shares. Bell immediately transferred all but 10 of his shares as a wedding gift to his new bride. A short time later, just prior to leaving for an extended honeymoon of Europe, Hubbard signed apower of attorney giving control of her shares to her father. This made Gardiner Hubbard the de facto president and chairman of the Bell Telephone Company,^[18] which later evolved intoAmerican Telephone & Telegraph, (aka AT&T) at times the world's largesttelephone company.

Hubbard was highly intelligent but usually preferred to remain in the background while Bell conducted scientific discussions and meetings among his peers—for many decades he held regular Wednesday eveningintellectual salons in theirhome parlour, dutifully documented in the multiple volumes of his "homenotes".^[4] However, Hubbard strongly believed that aheavier-than-air vehicle could be designed to fly, and she provided the inspiration and financing of about $20,000CAD to that end, a significant amount in 1907 (approximately $450,000 in 2008 dollars).^[19]

At that time Hubbard sold some of her real estate and gave that amount of money to her husband and four others to establish theAerial Experimental Association (AEA),^[20] for the purpose of constructing "a practical flying aerodrome",Canada's first heavier-than-air vehicle, theSilver Dart.^[19] Based on their scientific experiments, the aircraft they designed and built incorporated several technical innovations not previously invented for flight, includinglateral control by means ofailerons.^[21] Partly because of her founding of the AEA, but also for founding social and educational institutions, she was named aNational Historic Person in 2018.^[22]

Catherine Joell MacKinnon portrays Hubbard in episode 3 of season 11 "8 Footsteps" (October 9, 2017) of theCanadian television perioddetective seriesMurdoch Mysteries.

Notes

Citations

• Grosvenor, Edwin S. and; Wesson, Morgan (1997).Alexander Graham Bell: The Life and Times of the Man Who Invented the Telephone. New York: Harry N. Abrahms, Inc.ISBN 0-8109-4005-1.
• Mackay, James (1997).Sounds Out of Silence: A life of Alexander Graham Bell. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing Company.ISBN 1-85158-833-7.
• MacKenzie, Catherine (1928).Alexander Graham Bell. Boston: Grosset and Dunlap.ISBN 978-0-7661-4385-2.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• MacLeod, Elizabeth (1999).Alexander Graham Bell: An Inventive Life. Toronto: Kids Can Press.ISBN 1-55074-456-9.
• Matthews, Tom L. (1999).Always Inventing: A Photobiography of Alexander Graham Bell. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society.ISBN 0-7922-7391-5.
• Waite, Helen Elmira. (1961).Make A Joyful Sound: The Romance of Mabel Hubbard and Alexander Graham Bell. Macrae Smith Company. ISBN 9781258250607.
• "Obituary of Mrs. Mabel Gardiner Bell".The New York Times. January 23, 1923.
• Holcomb, Stakley, Majoriebell; Wood, Sharon (1989).Deaf women: a parade through the decades. Berkeley, California: Dawn Sign Press. p. 191.ISBN 978-0-915035-28-1.

• Media related toMabel Gardiner Hubbard at Wikimedia Commons
• Alexander & Mabel Bell Legacy Foundation

• 1857 births
• 1923 deaths
• American deaf people
• Alexander Graham Bell
• People from Baddeck, Nova Scotia
• Gardiner family
• Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use American English from January 2026
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English
• Use mdy dates from May 2018
• Articles with hCards
• CS1 errors: ISBN date
• Commons category link from Wikidata